I’ve been trying to remember exactly what and where this place was, but can only remember a few particulars.
[ul]
[li]It was just a little way beyond Santa Monica, on the inland side.[/li][li]It was a sprawling complex of two or three sto ries that, IIRC, was arrayed in a sort of horseshoe shape with the open end facing the highway.[/li][li]Painted a sort of pale seafoam-ish green[/li][li]Early modern architecture, possibly 1930s, with curved corners and deep eaves.[/li][li]Looked big enough to have amenities like a restaurant and bar, but I don’t know because I never saw it when it wasn’t abandoned.[/li][li]It looked like the sort of place where you could imagine Lucy and Ricky Ricardo coming to stay on vacation (as the TV characters, of course).[/li][li]I think it was still there up to the early 1990s[/li][/ul]
I drove by this place many, many times, but it was years the before the age of always having a camera in my pocket.
Does anybody remember anything about this place, or have a picture of it?
I know the place you are talking about very well having grown up in the Pacific Palisades. It was the Sunspot. Here is an article about it from 1991. It was located just north of Chautauqua Blvd on PCH. Your memory is correct and it was an abandoned mess that was never brought back to life due to landslide/erosion/environmental issues in the area:
The 1938 Streamline Moderne architecture sounds exactly right, but only a bar or restaurant business seems to be mentioned in any of the sources. Memories can be deceitful, twenty-year-old ones not the least, but the place I remember seemed much too large not to be some sort of hotel or motel as well. It seemed to sprawl back from PCH over an acre or two.